What It’s Like To Be a Polygamy Beat Reporter

By: Chris Ip | Columbia Journalism Review

Last Tuesday, The New York Times’ frontpage headline read “It’s Official: Mormon Founder Had Many Wives.” That Joseph Smith married as many as 40 women—one of them 14 years old, and others already married to his followers—was a rare story for national news. But it was just another day on the job Nate Carlisle, perhaps the nation’s only polygamy beat reporter.

The Salt Lake Tribune role is no new fad; it’s been a beat at the paper since 2006.  At that time, Carlisle pitched in on a slew of polygamy coverage as Warren Jeffs, leader of the polygamy-practicing Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on the FBI most wanted list, was arrested and convicted of rape.